A HEALING

 

Starved for sun, I head to the beach in Hyannis on this warm winter day.  Wanting a new scene to inspire me, I’m here, looking at Lewis Bay for the first time.  The Hyannis Yacht club to my right is serenely vacant, its long dock empty.  The tide is out and the pilings are high, like fat pencils, sporting gulls instead of erasers.  The inner harbor is hidden behind a jetty, but an island ferry heading to port, passes in front of me.  Behind her, houses line the distant shore for several miles, until the land drops off into the ocean. 

 The quiet here is loud, without wind or waves.  My shoulders relax, my breathing is deeper and my worries dissipate.  I feel the rhythm here and I am now part of the scene.  Its peace seeps in like salve on a wound, coating me with healing.  The emptiness inside recedes, as nature’s energy takes its place.  Fear melts away and seems so small compared to the scope of beauty surrounding me.  Being here makes it impossible to stay locked up inside myself.  Without trying, I find myself outside, taking my place with all that is here.  Because this is where the part of me who cries for more, finds all I need.  No longer separate, I now connect.  No longer tense, I release.

In this time, at this place, I have healed a bit, or maybe a lot.  I came here not liking my life these days.  I wanted something to make it better – maybe a man to love, work that excites me and my energy back.  I felt adrift without a grasp.  Reaching for something unknown, I had fallen further away.  But here and now, I find my life line pulling me back to what was here all along – myself, as divine as the scene before me, because I am part of the whole.

TAHANTO ROAD

Tahanto Road led me here to the Pocasset River on the eastern shore of Buzzards Bay in Pocasset, MA. Houses with docks line its shores and it has the summertime feel of a closely knit neighborhood, active with children swimming, barbeques, boaters coming and going and joyful hustle and bustle. Its boaters pass by striking jetties as they enter the bay. Made by men to keep the channel open, the jetties seem to bid a safe passage and a welcome return.

I’ve been here in summer but it’s winter now and a quiet time for reflection. I look at the jetties and am struck by thoughts of what lies beyond safe shores. I think of new beginnings, of entering uncharted waters. The rocks of each jetty stretch out, reminding me of a parent’s arms. Holding their children safe, they guide, protect and share their wisdom in preparation for life, yet, when the time comes, they must let them go. The parent must face restraint and is left, like the jetties, marking a safe and steady place for their return.

Each of us must travel through our own portal into waters unknown, to find whatever treasures await, if only to discover that taking the journey to wherever it leads, is the treasure itself. It is where our discoveries lead us to ourselves. If we are blessed with a chartered beginning to set us on course, we are free to roam beyond, knowing that the arms that sent us off, will welcome us back.

And when we return we are so much more than who we were. Filled with new experience, we grow in understanding of ourselves and hopefully learn that life is about solo journeys to seek and grow and then reconnect with others to share the new bits of ourselves.

This is the message that I get, looking through the channel into open waters. Even on my lone journey, writing here today, I have enjoyed the beauty of nature and gained a bit of understanding. And now, I too can share a small piece of me.